Ballad of the Heartfish
by Windswift
Summary: [Minish Cap] For Princess Zelda's fifteenth birthday she becomes a young woman, receives her very own sword, and gets a lot of fluttery feelings that are all Link's fault because she had to eat his piece of cake too in spite.


Disclaimer: I don't own The Legend of Zelda

This fic has nothing to do with Link's Awakening, and also this title is not strictly 100% my fault.

_**Ballad of the Heartfish**_

The sword takes Link months of trial and error and practice to make. It's not his first sword-he's advanced that far in his apprenticeship for a while now-but it's the first one he insists on forging all on his own, without any prompting or supervision from his grandfather. And for the last week Link's almost sure he won't finish it in time.

But Link works really well under last-minute do-or-die pressure, and he finally stops screwing up his work. And the night before his deadline, at long last, he holds a tempered blade in his hands that's well-balanced and doesn't shatter.

He grins as he checks to make sure the pommel's snug in place and then lays it across his knees. The sword is beautiful. Mostly. It is mostly beautiful. It's a mostly beautiful sword that is not terrible quality for a novice apprentice flexing his new-found power.

His smile doesn't fade as he sits in the smithy, polishing the blade by the light of the forge and giving the edges a final sharpening, until his head droops to the sound of birds calling in the early-morning darkness.

Link sleeps straight through Princess Zelda's coming-of-age party for her fifteenth birthday.

He wakes up that afternoon to a crick in his neck and Zelda tapping her gloved fingers against his cheek.

"I thought you must have been ill or something terrible when you didn't show up," Zelda says, crossing her arms. "But here you are just lazily sleeping the day away! Link, I told you not to forget. I can't believe I worried about you..."

Link thinks maybe she has a point about the sick thing, until he realizes that probably his head feels so strange and awful because of how his neck's aching terribly from sleeping slumped against the wall. He raises his arms to stretch, wincing, and almost tips the sword out of his lap and onto the floor of the smithy.

Oh.

Zelda has her long, fair hair pulled back with a ribbon that matches her dress, and Link wants to know if he can borrow it for just a few minutes.

Zelda glowers at him. But she is a princess, and fifteen now and a young woman, and she can be gracious even to the stupid, _stupid_ boy who'd rather sleep his life away in the corner of a blacksmith's forge than show his stupid face to wish her well on her fifteenth birthday. And, irritated as she is, she's a little bit curious.

So she tugs the pink ribbon out of her hair and shoves it, in her fist, awfully close to Link's nose. "Fine," she says. "Here."

Link takes it in one hand and the sword in the other, and he scrambles up to look around the smithy for the scabbard and sword belt. He finds them laying on the work bench in a heap among all the tools. He sheathes the blade and ties the ribbon around the scabbard in a lopsided bow.

Hm. He unties it and tries again. Behind him, Zelda taps her foot against the floor.

Link turns around and holds out the sword, because today is Zelda's birthday and she's fifteen and it's special and she's special and Link wants her to have this. Although maybe Zelda will want him to hold onto it for just a bit longer, because Link's not entirely sure when he dozed off and he may not have finished sharpening the edge of the blade yet.

Zelda blinks and stares at him, her face flushed still but the pinched lines of her frown softening. "You made this for me?" she murmurs, reaching out to brush her fingertips over the scabbard. She traces the flowing, elegant curlicues adorning it, her fingers ghosting against Link's, and pulls the sword free to admire the blade.

It's beautiful and she's never had a sword of her own before, much as she's hinted to her father. And her very best friend forged it just for her.

Link grins at her, that bright, cheeky grin that crinkles his eyes.

Zelda yanks the bow off the scabbard and ducks her head to pull her hair up in the ribbon again. "Thank you very much," she says, every inch a gracious princess. Then Zelda coughs into her hand because she's not beaming back at Link, she's not, she's still very annoyed with him for not sharing her special day with her even if his present's made her warm from head to toe with delight, and there must be something in her throat making her voice come out so funny and not-angry. "But you're not off the hook, Link! You better make it up to me for missing my party."

Link slips the sword belt over Zelda's shoulders and girds it on her, fastening the buckle snug, and her stomach flutters. Probably from eating Link's slice of cake too out of spite.

* * *

Though maybe, Zelda has to admit to herself upon further reflection, swallowing down the fluttery feelings that stick in her throat-maybe it's not the cake.

Link is waiting in the hall, just after the morning council session, bearing Zelda's fully-sharpened, very own, no one can tell her it's very unladylike and quite problematic to raid the royal armory _now_ sword. The blade laying loosely in his hands is even more beautiful than yesterday, after a whole night of imagining and anticipation and dreaming.

Zelda doesn't even try to stop the smile that lights up her face when Link turns his head and grins at her.

Zelda has thought about her demands, and her demands are simple. She plops Link down outside her bedroom door while she discards her formal regalia for a tunic and trousers and sturdy boots.

"Spar with me," she shouts through the door. "Link, you'll be of age to enter the tournament in the Picori Festival this year. Well, since I'm also old enough, and now that I've got my own sword and I can practice as much as I please, I'm going to compete as well! So if you want to fight me for the prize, and you don't want to see your princess get slashed up and tossed out of the tournament in disgrace after the first round-you'd better teach me how to hold my own with a blade. It's the least you can do after abandoning me on my most-important once-in-a-lifetime fifteenth birthday."

Link doesn't say anything, although she can hear him stirring outside the door. That's as good as a _yes I promise_ in Zelda's book.

Zelda combs her hair and sets to pulling it back into a braid. It's not that she hasn't had any training with a sword. After the defeat of Vaati and the restoration of Hyrule, Zelda and Link took to running about playing at Hero and reliving all the best parts of his adventures. They armed themselves with sticks at first, of course, but King Daltus caught wind of it before Zelda could quite manage to talk her way into a ring of keys that would let her into the royal armory.

He was, the king admitted, older and grayer and perhaps a bit fatter than he had been in the days when he was a celebrated young swordsman who fought the Master Smith to a draw in the Picori Festival. And swordplay wasn't exactly considered the standard dignified education of princesses. But he conceded that Zelda ought to know that there was a right way and a wrong way to go about it, at least, before King Daltus had to hear that his only daughter and heir to the crown had contrived to lop her royal head off.

So he took her aside and handed her to the palace guards for a few basic lessons-and that, he considered, was that.

Zelda buckles her sword belt across her chest. Well, if her father ever truly believed it was so, he was very gravely mistaken.

In the bright sunshine of Hyrule Field-Link and Zelda have to troop back to the smithy where he left his own sword behind-Zelda decides that the quickest and most efficient way of learning how not to drown is to fling herself into the deep water and thrash around a lot.

So she draws her sword, and spreads her feet, and remembers to keep her knees a little bent, and says, "Come at me."

Link does.

Link _doesn't_ draw his sword, and he ignores Zelda's glower as he crouches down in front of her. And then Link grabs her ankles and tugs to adjust her stance and almost knocks her over, and he's lucky Zelda doesn't tumble and squash him or drop her sword on his stupid head.

"Stop that!" she sputters. "You'll make me fall-you could just tell me!"

Link sits back on his heels and smiles up at her. He could just tell Zelda where to move her feet, but showing is a lot easier and then she doesn't get mad at him when she doesn't listen right and keeps moving her feet in the wrong direction.

"You were giving me bad directions," Zelda huffs. Link's hands are still on her boots, his fingers wrapped firmly against her calves, and her ears are all hot and her stomach is doing that weird fluttery too-full-of-cake thing again and it's making her cross.

Although maybe, she has to admit to herself, maybe it's not too much cake that's upsetting her stomach. Seeing as she hasn't even eaten any cake today.

Zelda swallows the feeling down and squeezes the hilt of her sword, and the moment Link's out of the way she launches into a series of quick slashes and thrusts and lunges. The sword is heavy in her hand, heavier than sticks, and Zelda's never quite been enough in practice to fall out of it.

That's why her heart is thumping so hard when Link's come up behind her and reached around-his hands on hers-to correct her grip.

The sword. It's definitely because of the sword and not at all because Link has his arms wrapped around her and she can feel his body heat against her back.

Link thinks that Zelda looks like she's about to stomp on his foot, and he'd kind of like to back away but he _does_ think this positioning of her hands will make her grip more secure and also she was the one who asked him to teach her in the first place so he'd really like to keep his toes intact.

Zelda lets out the breath she's been holding and lets go of the shivery feeling tingling her spine. It's not like Link is anything special or like she's ever tried to imagine what it would be like if he swept her into some private, hidden alcove the way the tall handsome knight does with his ladylove in stories. Link's just her best friend, and also not tall.

She elbows him because his fingers are still laying over hers. "It's fine," she says. "Now stop messing around and spar with me, Link!"

He steps back and draws his sword with a smile that makes Zelda's face flush.

In annoyance.

Zelda leaps into attack, and she manages to batter Link back a few steps with her ferocity. But he is the Hero and he disarms her a few strokes later-her sword goes flying-and she expects that.

She doesn't expect him to declare his victory with a cheeky rap of the flat of his sword against her arm. It smarts, just enough to make Zelda yelp in surprise.

She punches him before she goes to retrieve her sword, and he laughs at it like a stupid boy-which he is.

(Though, Zelda is a young woman now and she can't help chuckling as well by the time she faces him and makes sure her feet are turned properly in her stance once more.)

Link and Zelda spar until they're sweaty and red-faced and grass-stained and dirt-streaked and laughing too hard to care and both rather overdue for lunch. Link thinks that Zelda's so aggressive with her sword work that she probably could've given Vaati a run for his money. He bets she's more dangerous swinging that blade right now than she'll ever be after she's gotten enough experience to enter the Picori Festival tournament.

"Is that so?" Zelda says. Link's already sheathed his sword, and Zelda's is still in her hand. She takes two steps to circle behind him, flicks her wrist back, and smacks the flat of the blade soundly against his bottom before she hurries away.

The strike is most definitely poor sportsmanship and not very becoming of a young lady either, and it makes those too-much-cake feelings tumble in Zelda's stomach again. But the yelp Link lets out is very, _very_ satisfying.


End file.
